I dunno, at that price I would might look at other options. On board welders are fairly simply units. Its basically just a fairly high amperage alternator. It saved our bacon on the last moab trip. We broke a spring hanger and had a great time welding it back up on the trail.

These units run like 300 bucks or so. The difficult part would be finding space under the hood for it. You will also need to install a hand throttle as well so that you can moderate the amperage of the welder without using a brick or something. Hand throttles are just cool anyway.

I would still run the cord from the dryer if it were me, at least for starters, it can be very annoying but at least you get started. Building a garage is just like building a vehicle if you don't do it piece meal then it doesnt happen. I started doing the dryer cord, after which we ran the outlet to the garage. Would I run from the dryer again?? Yep! Was it annoying to run back and forth to the breaker ?? Yep, but not nearly bad enough to stop welding.

I suppose we are all entitled to our own opinions of course. And I by no means have a desire to start a flame war. But I would certainly encourage that you get the welder first, necessity is the mother of invention. If you have to learn how to wire 220 in the process, good for you, you are learning something new! Its more fun to be a jack of all trades anyway.

Good luck Kev.